Random Acts of Culture™ arrived with a bang at the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival as musician Wu Tong surprised the Making Cities Sing panel audience with a traditional flute performance.

Why Does Knight Foundation Fund Random Acts of Culture™? Knight Foundation, like its founders Jack and Jim Knight, focuses on promoting informed and engaged communities. To that end, we strongly believe in the potential of the arts to engage residents, and bring a community together. Hearing Handel, or seeing the tango in an unexpected place provides a deeply felt reminder of how the classics can enrich our lives. As you’ll see in our videos, the performances make people smile, dance, grab their cameras – even cry with joy. For those brief moments, people going along in their everyday lives are part of a shared, communal experience that makes their community a more vibrant place to live. In these days of shrinking audiences, we also hope that these random acts will encourage people to attend traditional performances. We can’t promise it. But it’s hard to watch what unfolds during a Random Act of Culture™, and not be inspired to see and hear more.